


The Chain

by vulpesvulpex



Series: One-Hundred Ways [6]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Nogitsune Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 17:45:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12347532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulpesvulpex/pseuds/vulpesvulpex
Summary: The field he lies in is not a marsh, nor a swamp, but a single cleared space. His book bag is pillowed underneath his arm, fingers tangled into the straps, his feet dug into the hard ground. There is no mud. There are no insects. There is only the remainder of the nightmare he just had that is etched into the tears that trek his cheeks, the sweat at his hairline.“Stiles, are you okay?”OR: "We'll figure it out."





	The Chain

 

He should have realized his proximity to just about everything not-normal was a sign way before the sign came to life, punched him in the throat, and left him bleeding out in the middle of a field alone. He really should have - all the clues were there, all the tells were there. He’s good at reading people -  _ “I’m a kid of a cop, dude, I’m fucking excellent at reading people. _ ” He’d brag, yet here he was.

“Shit,” He’s gasping out, sitting up the best he can. Originally, the punch in the throat was not an actual punch. It was the wind rushing out of his lungs and into the crisp spring air. It was just a hint too cold but right now all he could feel was warmth - warmth spreading down the column of his throat and the collar of his shirt, pooling around his belly button and seeping towards his pants.

“Shit.” He repeats, for emphasis, to no one. There’s a hot lump that’s just passing through his throat and out of his mouth, and he spits a mouthful into the cold dirt beside his hand. Actually, most of it - mucus, he hopes for the best, because he can’t see shit right now, but it feels like mucus. Oh God, let it be mucus - lands on his fingers, cools between the webbed parts, and sticks.

He knows Scott and the rest of the pack is out somewhere doing something in the woods surrounding him. It was a full moon, and they’ve decided to let everyone run wild for once. Finals have just ended, the terror of high school finally behind them all. Just this once, they’re going to be actual teen wolves. Not adult wolves. Not teenagers who were forced into the furry, or forced to grow up too fast. Tonight was about fun, and freedom, and wildness. 

Except he’s coughing up more lumps, head too heavy to actually try and get them out of his mouth, so he simply lets his mouth stay open and he gags, openly, into the darkness of the ground. 

At some point, his eyes get as heavy as he feels, the fight draining out of him, and he lays back down into the soft mud. At some point, the dirt has changed from warm mush to wet, slippery mud, his hands suddenly heavier than his head, fingers spasming in the slide of the ground. He finds a twig and anchors the twitching fingers around it as his head rests on something sturdy, heavy. A rock.

He wonders how hard he hit his head, but the thought it already fleeting by the time his fingers completely coil around the twig, then a tiny root beneath the twig. His fingers grapple and search, and it feels like an eternity until he feels hard-packed earth beneath his fingertips, solidifying the molten Earth around him. 

“What the fuck is happening to me?” He’s slurring into the high grasses that suddenly tower over him, a hundred miles ahead. He shuts his eyes, savoring the darkness behind his lids for just a moment, as the terror sets in.

When the Nogitsune had made him his own personal rag doll, he used to have hallucinations like this all the time. The world too small for him, his body like a skyscraper, or the world all too large, like he was a tiny ant in the megalopolis, being squished under his friend's shoes. Right now, he feels the latter, feels his heart slam into his chest, his lungs aching for the oxygen he can’t seem to find. It’s like all the air in the world is being sucked out by his own greedy mouth.

He tries to find the twig again, but it’s gone. Before, a physical anchor was all that he could latch onto to bring him back. Most of the time, it was emerging from a nightmare and flailing himself onto the ground, aching for the hard rush of gravity to bring him back to life, or sometimes a person. Sometimes it was Malia, or Scott, and one time even Derek. 

He wishes for any of them right now, but he knows they’re too far away. They’re up in the clouds, soaring far, far above him. They’re all wolfed out, the feral side of them closer to the surface than normal. They wouldn’t be able to get to him in time anyways. He’s sinking into the Earth, falling into the dirt.

It dawns on him as his eyes are clouded by a hundred thousand little bugs, that the lump he threw up was wrapping. Probably from the Nogitsune still clawing around the darkness in his heart. He can feel it all the time - when he sleeps, when he dreams, when he’s laughing, and right now as he struggles for life - the weight, pressing him down, dragging, kicking, screaming - 

“Stiles?” A voice screams, far enough that Stiles can barely hear, but he does. He clings to the noise, eyelashes batting away the insects with harsh blinks. Like blinking away concrete tears, they fly and crash into the mud. 

“Stiles?” The person - a man - screams, closer this time, advancing. He wrenches his head up over the mud, gasping, taking in as much oxygen as he can as he convulses. The sudden breathing startles his other senses into working - movement, his fingers, his legs, pushing out of the mud, out of the dirt, and into the night. He can see, the night shining brightly overhead, but all he looks for is the person -

“Stiles?” He looks, and catches a flash of dark hair, of a chest, naked besides the light bathing it in a soft glow. He knows the face, recognizes the Roman nose, the dark hair. Relief floods his system as he retches. He can’t help it - he throws up the contents in his stomach as his fingers finally untangle themselves from the mud.

A hand grabs onto his neck, hauling him up, and he spasms to life completely.

The field he lies in is not a marsh, nor a swamp, but a single cleared space. His book bag is pillowed underneath his arm, fingers tangled into the straps, his feet dug into the hard ground. There is no mud. There are no insects. There is only the remainder of the nightmare he just had that is etched into the tears that trek his cheeks, the sweat at his hairline.

“Stiles, are you okay?” He looks up, startled. The hand on the back of his neck is still a hot brand of reminder. Derek is disheveled beside him, naked besides a pair of running shorts  that bundle around his thighs. His forehead is crinkled in that way - the way he saw with Cora, or with Scott, or. With him. Apparently. 

He wretches. He can’t help it. Directly beside his bare foot and gags for a moment afterwards, unable to catch his breath. The hand on the back of his neck never leaves, only applies pressure directly where the thick cords of muscles are wrung tight. 

He shrinks back, his shoulders bouncing into Derek’s knees. He’s still squatting and only sits when Stiles leans fully back, unable to support himself any longer. His head is pillowed, a bit awkwardly, by Derek’s thighs. The hand leaves his neck in favor of his jaw, pulling his chin up to force him to look fully up.

“Was it another nightmare?” There has been two separate occasions Derek has seen him like this, and both by chance. Most nights, the nightmares stay localized in his sleep - but once Derek found him shaking, sleep-walked into the shower and huddled into the corner as cool water streamed by his feet. The second time was as he thrashed around on Derek’s couch, crying out for Allison. 

He only nods, swallowing around the thumb that is pushing into his pulse point. It’s oddly intimate - more so than practically sprawling across another person - but he’ll take what he can get. After nightmares he’s particularly touch starved. 

“I could hear your heartbeat a mile away,” The thumb presses down, just light enough that he can feel the blunt nail pushing a crescent into his skin. “So damn loud, sounded like a bass drum. Thought I was going to have to save you from that murder of crows again.”

“‘M not scared of crows.” His eyes are heavy, but for some reason, he wants them to be open. He tracks the smile that creeps into Derek’s words, watches the lines form around his eyes as he does so. 

“You’re a bad liar.” He blinks once at him, almost expectantly at him, and Stiles rolls his eyes on cue.

“Stop reading my mind.” The idea comes to mind: Derek, the mind reader. Oh God, that would be awful. He hates having to listen to people normally - it would just be torture if he had to listen to them all the time. 

He doesn’t hesitate, “I’m listening to your heartbeat.” 

He’s too sluggish to reply, only shuts his eyes. It’s strangely electric for just a second - he knows what’s been going on for a while. The dance they’ve been attempting to tackle for the past year, but can never learn the steps to, the tempo he never becomes accustomed to. 

“Why is it always you?” He says instead. Can’t help it, can’t stop thinking about all the times Derek has been there. He’s always the first one to the scene, always the last to leave. He’s like a habit Stiles can’t seem to shake anymore. And it’s hard - because now that they’ve grown, it’s easier to become used to each other. Derek moved out of his loft and into a nice house in the middle of the forest, where the whole pack goes. It’s effortless - the whole thing. He can lounge around, can do his homework whenever he wants to. Sometimes Derek stays to bicker and help him through it - he’s unsurprisingly good at math, english and geography - and sometimes he goes. A few odd time or two, he’ll nap right beside Stiles on the couch, feet curled underneathe Stiles’ thighs. 

Most times though, he’ll simply let him in. The door is always unlocked, and even if it were unlocked, they’d made a key for everyone just in case. There’s always two extra bedrooms just in case, and a fridge full of food and warm water at their disposal. There’s also drunk patrol at all hours. No one drives drunk, high or stupid without being cleared. Most of the time, by Derek himself.

The one difference, Stiles thinks a bit murkily, is that he cares more openly now. Before, with the whole ‘we’re brothers now’ bullshit, he was more stoic, more choosey with his words. Now, he’s blatant. He’ll bark out anyone who tries to do anything out of range for their stupidity - more so Stiles, because he’s so breakable, as he put it. He’ll even call parents. One time he did on Scott for running of to San Francisco when he had a meltdown. 

“Crows symbolize strength, and balance. Did you know that?” Derek eludes, and Stiles bite anyways. 

“No.” He swallows, just to feel the press, to feel the anchor. Nudges his head up to feel the muscle beneath it, opens his eyes to look. Derek is already looking down, eyes steadily growing darker. 

“They also symbolize transformation, to change in hard times. They’re said to be the harbingers of death, but how can such good things foreshadow evil?” He looks almost sad now, his other hand reaching to cup his chin to turn him almost ninety-degrees. “Most things are never as they seem. Every person holds the darkness in them, and I think - I think you hold onto yours tighter than others.”

He squints at him, knows the devastated look that Derek wears all too well on darker days. Those days, it’s harder to get to him, harder to make him understand. Except this time, it’s projected at him.

“How do I stop?” He can’t keep the desperation of out of his tone, the way his Adam’s apple bobs.

“Stop holding onto the dark parts? You don’t ever really stop. But it’s easier to acknowledge the lighter parts some days, to get used to the balance of them. It’s easier to accept you’ve got a little bit of both than to adhere to just a single side. We are dynamic people, Stiles, we aren’t just limited to one side.”

He lets his eyes drift shut at that, and tries to imagine the darkness around his heart. It’s suffocating some days, so hard he can barely breath. Those days he barely makes it to school, can barely sleep through the night without seeing Allison, without seeing the nuts and bolts, without seeing him take the pain from Scott with his own hands. 

But the other days - he saw his graduation, and watched Malia and Lydia drive off to the airport to catch a flight to Paris. He watched Scott get accepted into medical school, and for Isaac to get formally adopted into the Hale family. Three months before his eighteenth birthday, but still. He could feel the darkness receded into a giddy glow in his eyes, on his face and in the shaking of his hands. He knew that, in those moments, the darkness in his heart wasn’t just a brand, but a scar. A scar of the past, that was ridden over with something akin to shiny new skin that was pink from renewal. 

“When will it get better?” He sounds so young, but he doesn’t care. The tears shine brightly, boldly, but he can’t stop them from flowing. It hurts too much to do so.

“I don’t know,” Derek says almost wistfully, like he wouldn’t know if he tried to find the answer, “But we’ll figure it out.”


End file.
